Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- To derange; disorder; reflexively, to go wild; rage.
- To rage.
- noun Tumult; disorder.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete Disorder; merriment.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun obsolete
disorder - noun obsolete
merriment
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word deray.
Examples
-
They rode into the outer courtyard, through the muckle faulding yetts, and aneath the auld portcullis; and the whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be in Sir Roberts house at Pace and Yule, and such high seasons.
-
They rode into the outer courtyard, through the muckle faulding yetts, and aneath the auld portcullis; and the whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be at Sir Roberts house at Pace and Yule, and such high seasons.
-
They rode into the outer courtyard, through the muckle faulding yetts, and aneath the auld portcullis; and the whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be at Sir Robert's house at
Stories by English Authors: Scotland (Selected by Scribners) Various 1878
-
So, amid glitter of illuminated streets and Champs Elysees, and crackle of fireworks and glad deray, has the first National Assembly vanished; dissolving, as they well say, into blank Time; and is no more.
The French Revolution Thomas Carlyle 1838
-
So have we seen fond weddings (for individuals, like Nations, have their Hightides) celebrated with an outburst of triumph and deray, at which the elderly shook their heads.
The French Revolution Thomas Carlyle 1838
-
Whigs, who were the men in fact that wrought the most deray among the populace.
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner James Hogg 1802
-
I trembled with astonishment; and on my return from the small window went doiting in amongst the weaver's looms, till I entangled myself, and could not get out again without working great deray amongst the coarse linen threads that stood in warp from one end of the apartment unto the other.
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner James Hogg 1802
-
They rode into the outer courtyard, through the muckle faulding yetts and aneath the auld portcullis; and the whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be at Sir Robert's house at
Redgauntlet Walter Scott 1801
-
Report Commentby deray @ 8: 53am - Wed Mar 4th, 2009
-
They rode into the outer courtyard, through the muckle faulding yetts and aneath the auld portcullis; and the whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be at Sir Robert’s house at Pace and
Redgauntlet 2008
whichbe commented on the word deray
Disorder, disturbance, tumult, confusion.
It may not at once come to mind, but this archaic word is a close cousin of array. The ending in both cases is a Germanic root that means to prepare. To array originally meant to place in readiness or to prepare — troops arrayed for battle were ready with all their equipment; to deray is almost its opposite. You won't know the verb, as it vanished from the language in the fourteenth century. The noun lasted a little longer but likewise disappeared, only to be dragged back into use in the early nineteenth century as what the Oxford English Dictionary paradoxically describes as "a modern archaism". At once that makes one think of Sir Walter Scott, and he doesn't disappoint: from Redgauntlet (1824): "The whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be at Sir Robert's house at Pace and Yule, and such high seasons." (Pace is an old Scottish and northern English dialect term for Easter, also at one time called Pasque or Pasch, which is ultimately from the Hebrew word for Passover that also gave us paschal.) The fixed phrase dancing and deray outlasted other appearances of the word, though it is now defunct as well; it meant disorderly mirth and revelry at a dance or some similar festivity.
(from World Wide Words)
May 28, 2008